Ripley’s claimed West Bend did NOT enter the Great Depression…. Is that true?

Bink Steinbach of West Bend said he believes the “Ripley” statement was true.

“It wasn’t frivolous products being manufactured in West Bend,” said Steinbach. “We had Gehl Co, Amity Leather, Enger Kress and West Bend Company. Those companies were all run very strict with a conservative German mentality. There was a very disciplined management style in those companies.”

Prudence Pick Hway said she doesn’t disagree with Ripley’s but “I don’t think West Bend never entered the Great Depression.”

“Strong conservative, work ethic,” said Pick Hway. “I don’t think the financial fallout hit West Bend like it did many communities.”

Pick Hway said the Depression impacted supply and demand and the economy.

“It would have impacted manufacturing to some degree, but I think prior to the Great Depression there were many companies that had already made, relatively speaking, significant wealth and it probably helped tide them over,” she said.

Pick Hway said quite a few factors would have played into the scenario

“I think people in West Bend, but probably not all people, did relatively well,” she said. “I also don’t know how tied people were into the Stock Market. As Bink said, this is a relatively conservative community.”

Pick Hway also said West Bend had industry and manufacturing.

“The community had a good, solid base of wealth and manufacturing. All of those manufactures mentioned, as they did well so did their workers. So, it did pass down the chain,” she said.

On the second floor of City Hall there is a framed section of the Milwaukee Sentinel newspaper dated Sunday, October 11, 1953. The article highlights the City of West Bend and focuses on what makes it the “City of Varied Industries.”

“I don’t know the degree to which farming played a factor but certainly for the size of community it had a higher percentage of hard goods and solid manufacturing than the average small community of its size,” said Pick Hway.

Noting the success of the manufacturing, Pick Hway said the wealth in West Bend was not based upon ticker tape. “It wasn’t built on buy low, sell high; it was built on hard work and products that were being built and sold. Which is a little bit different than the financial centers back then (during the Depression) which would have been harder hit,” she said.

“Probably the businesses (Gehl, Amity, Enger Kress, West Bend Aluminum) weren’t as highly leveraged as people in the market, which is one way to look at it.  It was a combination of things,” said Pick Hway.

Former West Bend Mayor Kraig Sadownikow is well aware of the city’s history in manufacturing. With regard to the current critical economic and worldly situation, it will be interesting to see how the community responds.

 

If the past predicts at least some of what the future will be, I’m glad my kids, family and I are in West Bend.  Our history overflows with stories of strength, resilience, creativity and the ability to thrive when every indicator points toward demise.  In addition to being the City that never felt the Great Depression, we are also the City of Varied Industry, we survived a tornado, we fought the downtown fire that spawned West Bend Mutual and we re-tooled West Bend Company in WWII to make ammunition.  We are builders, manufacturers, service providers, first responders, educators, risk takers and entrepreneurs.

We have the incredible habit of standing up for each other and stepping up to the plate when our community is in need.  We don’t look to the mysterious “THEY” to do it.  We realize “THEY” is actually “WE.”

 

 We band together and do it ourselves.  We don’t have to look to the distant past for examples, West Bend is living it right now.  In the last 10 years, together, we have virtually re-built our entire downtown.  The East Side river revitalization is beautiful, once a joke the Old Settler’s Park is now a proud monument, what was a storm water drain is now Pocket Park and a new bridge connects East and West, MOWA is a national treasure and the Theatre will prove to be an example for others to follow.  Everyone of these successes is an example of our local government and our citizens working together.

That’s what it will take over the next few weeks.  Citizens, local government and service providers working together.  As citizens we have it pretty easy.  Wash our hands, keep our group gatherings small, buy our food local and basically be smart in times of uncertainty.  Having a bigger challenge are our first responders, public works teams and, of course, our health care workers.  Let them do the jobs they do so well.  While we hunker down and keep our families safe inside our homes, they are keeping the City operating and protecting us from the outside.

Stay strong, stay smart, stay healthy and stay determined.  It’s what Americans (and West Benders) do.

WB SURVIVES GREAT DEPRESSION

In the 1930s the strong economy in West Bend led Ripley’s Believe it or Not to claim that “West Bend was the only city in the United States not to enter the Great Depression.”

“Famous for its varied industries was West Bend’s slogan,” said Joe Huber an 84-year-old native of West Bend.

In 1932 Huber was eight-years-old and his family owned the West Bend News and the News Print Shop.

Huber said the community gave the impression they were insulated from the struggling economy because of its solid industrial base.

In the depression era West Bend was teaming with local industry including the West Bend Aluminum Company (commonly known as the West Bend Co.), Amity Leather, Enger Kress, West Bend Equipment Co., Gehl Brothers Manufacturing Co. (now Gehl Co.), White House Milk Co. which was a division of the A&P food stores, WesBar, Pick Manufacturing Co., and Barton Washer and Line Material Co. in the Barton area.

“With the exception of the White House Milk Co. these were all locally owned,” said Huber.

In Jackson, former Washington County Supervisor Reuben Schmahl was 17-years-old during the Great Depression. He was a high school graduate in 1931 and said he never felt affected by the poor economy.

“All of my neighborhoods thought that was just the way we lived,” said Schmahl who still resides on his family homestead that dates to 1846.

“We were on a farm and we lived off the fat of the land.” Schmahl listed their bounty as chickens, pigs, vegetables and fruits in the garden that ran alongside an apple orchard.

Schmahl, 94, agreed West Bend remained stable because it had a number of strong companies with strong leaders. “The factories afforded a lot of employment for not only West Bend but also the surrounding communities,” he said.

Some of the captains of industry in the city of West Bend, which at the time carried a population of about 5,000 included: Robert H. Rolfs of Amity Leather; A.C. Kieckhafer, Walter E. Malzahn, and Robert H. Wendorf of the West Bend Company; W. E. Kuehlthau of the Wisconsin Public Utility of West Bend, G. F. Groom, President of Enger Kress Pocket Books; John W. Gehl, President of Gehl Brother s Manufacturing; Carl Pick with Pick Manufacturing, Ernest Frankenberg of the Bank of West Bend; D. J Kenny of B. C. Ziegler Company; and Bernard Ziegler who headed West Bend Aluminum, B.C Ziegler Co. and First National Bank.

In the early 1930s Schmahl said the economic downturn wasn’t the only hardship as a wicked summer of heat and drought took its toll on area farmers. “The heat was unreasonable at times and my dad wouldn’t work until 2 o’clock in the afternoon just to save the horses.” Schmahl remembered his father would go out and shock the grain because the horses were more important to him than his own life.

Downtown West Bend also remained rather insulated from the downtrodden economy because of locally owned businesses and Highway 45.

“Highway 45 ran through the downtown and business owners felt through traffic would keep their shops more alive,” said Schmahl listing Sears Roebuck Co. at Hickory and Main, Carbon’s IGA, Peter’s Grocery, Geib Hotel, Mermac Theatre, First State Bank, R.W. Boldt Drug Store, Regner Drug Store and the famous Beacon Restaurant.

“When we went to high school the Beacon was a savior for us. I remember on Friday’s they had baked beans, 25 cents all you can eat,” grinned Schmahl admitting he ate baked beans until they were coming out of his ears. “I don’t know if it did so well in school but that’s another topic.”

Well diversified industry is how Edward German of West Bend remembers the 1930s.

At 14-years-old German said prohibition ended and his dad needed work. “He found a job at Gehl’s and that was the only place hiring yet. If you wanted a job, they would give you a job; it almost seemed like they were trying to take care of the people in town,” he said.

German also noted the prosperity of the time in the size of buildings and factories. “Look at the West Bend Company, they started as just a little plant making pots and pans and look at how much they grew,” he said.

Although industry in West Bend held its own, the community did take advantage of Works Progress Administration (W.P.A.). Created in May 1935 W.P.A. helped provide economic relief to the citizens of the United States suffering through the Great Depression.

“We did have people on outdoor relief,” said Huber. “Men from the city were hired to work on Regner Park which was a WPA project as was the Post Office, McLane grade school, and the first addition to the High School (now Badger).” The second addition to the old high school in 1939-40 was a Public Works Administration project.

Questioned whether about the status of our current economic climate, Huber said we are definitely not in a depression.

“A depression usually shows a marked drop in retail prices in the form of a deflation. So far this has not happened. We are in a recession though and a downturn in the economy. Only time will tell but I believe it will take more than a year to get “back to normal” whatever is “normal is.”